Micromuse paid for its first product by reselling other people's computers. Founded in London in 1989, it ran a systems integration and consulting business for network managers, then used that cash to build Netcool/OMNIbus, which shipped in January 1995. Netcool pulled alarms from every corner of a network into one live database and showed operators which business services were at risk. In 1997 the company moved its headquarters to San Francisco.

From London to San Francisco

In March 1997 Micromuse reorganized as a Delaware company and moved from London to San Francisco, raising $4.9 million and arranging a $3 million credit line. Its customers were the builders of the commercial internet, including GTE Internetworking, MindSpring, Netcom, PSINet, Pacific Bell and WorldCom's UUNet, plus banks such as Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. The bet was that bigger networks would need one clear view of what was failing.

IBM Pays $10 a Share

Micromuse priced its IPO at $12 a share in February 1998 and listed on Nasdaq as MUSE. It sold 3.1 million shares, then returned to the market for more stock offerings in 1998, 2000 and 2001. Netcool stayed its core product. In 2006 IBM bought Micromuse for $10 a share in cash, a deal worth about $840 million, and Micromuse stopped trading that February.

Cover: Urania, plate twelve from Apollo and the Muses, Master of the E-Series Tarocchi. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for Urania, the muse who watches the heavens.